I continued this life for about six months, making enough money every week to pay my way at the Ordinary. Perhaps—I know not—the prison was already beginning to work its way with me and to reduce me, as Tom Shirley said, to the condition of a fiddler to Jack in the Green.
I had a visit, after some three months, from Mr. Probus. He came one day into the prison. I saw him standing on the pavement looking round him. Some of the collegians knew him: they whispered and looked at him with the face that means death if that were possible. One man stepped forward and cursed him. 'Dog!' he said, 'if I had you outside this accursed place, I would make an end of you.'
'Sir,' said Mr. Probus, at whose heels marched a turnkey, 'you do me an injustice for which you will one day be sorry. Am I your detaining creditor?'
The man cursed him again, I know not why, and turned on his heel.
Then I stepped forward. 'Did you come here to gloat over your work, Mr. Probus?'
'Mr. William? I hope you are well, Sir. The prison air, I find, is fresh from the fields. You look better than I expected. To be sure it is early days. You are only just beginning.'
'You will be sorry to hear that I am very well.'
'I would have speech in a retired place, Mr. William.'
'You want once more to dangle your bribe before me. I understand, sir, very well, what you would say.'
'Then let me say it here. Your cousin, I may say, deplores deeply this new disgrace to the family. He earnestly desires to remove it. I am again empowered to purchase an imaginary reversion. Mr. William, he will now make it £4,000. Will that content you?'